patchwork

The most recent Very Berry Handmade Fabric ATC swap was home sweet home themed. My partner this time actually was the lovely person who I got my last card from. She lives all the way in Brazil, and she sent me this card at Christmas. Her brief was that she likes pink and candy colours, and as I have been following her Facebook page, I know she is also into patchwork.

This is what I came up with. I did it all on the sewing machine, and used a combination of appliqué, very scrappy patchwork and a butterfly button.I think it is my favourite card I’ve made so far. Just using zig zag stitch around the edge is also by far the easiest and tidiest way I’ve edged a card too. I will be doing that again next time! However, you really should check out the swap Flickr page. There were some absolutely beautiful cards being swapped again.

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Following on from the messy scrap patches I made the other week, I used them to make a squishy cushion as a present for a friend. In the end, I used some cream and pink spotty stripes to break up the patches. As an aside, check out the lovely Melin Tregwynt Welsh tapestry blanket I had for my birthday. It is so cosy! I used my yellow retro sheet from the back (I swear it is never ending!)I did have some issues while making it – I felt a bit rough and ended up made way more mistakes than usual. I had to unpick and remeasure a few times (partly because the cushion pad was so squishy it was hard to work out exactly what size the cover needed to be).

I still have some pieces of fabric left, including this lovely blue one which looks a bit like seagulls, and this beige version of my favourite black bird fabric. I’m currently cutting out fabric for a little mini quilt, and I’ll be using these, along with even more yellow retro sheet and other blue, yellow and green fabrics in my stash. I have also had the idea of appliquéing beach hut-looking houses onto it as well – kind of Brighton themed! I have some Britten Hus fabric from IKEA, to cut the houses out from. The link is to a blogger who used the fabric, as it seems IKEA don’t do it any more, but I do love the idea on the blog!

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I don’t think this is what this method is called, but that’s my name for it! I got given a big bag of fabric from a friend of a friend, and it included some pre-cut squares and other little bits of quilting fabric. There is also some other lovely dress fabric which will be the subject of another post… Anyway, I’ve been using the pre-cut pieces and bits from my special tiny scrap draw (I literally don”t throw anything out) to make these patches. They are surprisingly therapeutic and look quite nice all lined up.I suppose my patches are a variation of log cabin quilts, but not as tidy! With most of the patches I’ve done so far, I started with two triangles, and then worked around the square using rectangles to bring the patch to the right size. Being quite untidy and lazy, I trimmed off any excess where the patches were not quite the right size.

My plan is to use them to make a cushion cover for a friend – I’m going to use either some plain linen or pale pink tweed I have in my stash to break up the pattern and to make the backing.

I also want to show you these super-cute fabric buttons my friend gave me for my birthday. Obviously, my button addiction is becoming (in)famous!